The National Memorial for the Mountains is an online memorial that uses the popular Google Earth software to show the massive scale of destruction occurring in Appalachia. The memorial identifies more than 500 mountains destroyed by mountaintop removal and connects visitors to stories, photos, maps, videos and interviews of local residents to tell the stories of those mountains and nearby communities.

Some of the features of the memorial can be viewed on this page, either by clicking on any of the featured mountains listed to the right, or by clicking on the flags in the map below. For the complete experience, however, including "before and after" views of destroyed mountains, a high-resolution "virtual tour" of a large mountaintop removal site, and more, it is necessary to view the memorial in the Google Earth environment.

Click here to learn how to view the memorial in Google Earth and see why the National Memorial for the Mountains was awarded the distinction of being included as "Featured Content" in the Google Earth software package itself.

Data Sources

This map is derived from data collected in two studies produced by Appalachian Voices and the Natural Resources Defense Council, collectively known as Reclamation FAIL. For your convenience, here is the list of destroyed mountains and communities ( XLS).